


Winter Ice

by beng



Series: The Dawn Will Come [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Balcony Scene, F/M, Fluff, Guilt, Interracial By Fantasy Standards, Love, Size Difference, Skyhold, Smut, Spoilers for Blackwall, Spoilers for Explanations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rinata's judgement of Alexius, the useless, disappointing journey to the Storm Coast, the long years of lying... Blackwall has no idea how to come clean to her anymore.<br/>His latest attempt to do just that has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Or right. Yeah, maybe it's right.</p><p>(Some context + smutty continuation of the balcony scene)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter Ice

Blackwall sat on his bed in the barracks, candlelight glinting off the worn badge in his hand. It was from the Storm Coast, the place where the lie had begun. Where it should have ended, and hadn’t.

He leaned forward, passing tired, rough hands over his face. The guilt and anger, and shame had been crushing him for years, and now there was also an all-devouring fear.

She would surely kill him if she knew.

He thought back to the muttering of the crowd as the magister, Gereon Alexius, had been led out of the hall. Some had observed that the Inquisition could put him to useful work and that death was probably too harsh a sentence for a man who, basically, was just a traitorous apostate. Some had noted that he was a powerful mage, and a rich man — a good ally. After all, the Inquisition had recruited people from all walks of life, not asking too many questions as long as the heart was willing.

Blackwall was neither rich, nor did he feel particularly useful. He was just a soldier, and there would be no objections to his death, should the truth of his deeds come out.

He remembered the shuttered look on Rinata’s face, Alexius’ blood dripping slowly from her blade. The weight of the man’s head as it had rolled off the platform and stopped against his feet, sickly grey eyes staring up unseeingly.

It could be him. Most probably, it _will_ be him, sooner or later.

He shivered, imagining that same frozen look directed at him.

Rinata had grown colder already. Maybe she was starting to give up on her infatuation with him, or maybe she was starting to suspect something — Maker knows what a pathetic liar he was. She had acted more distant ever since they returned from the Exalted Plains. On the Storm Coast it had only solidified into some placid, cool politeness, only the barest hint of warmth creeping into her voice as she spoke with him.

That coldness had bound his tongue, and he hadn’t explained anything, the black-hearted coward that he was. Now they were back, and she barely talked to him, and, oh how he despised himself.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up suddenly, before he could change his mind.

He would tell her everything, and then… And then he’d pay and be free of this crippling guilt and fear forever.

 

*

Four, five, six, seven… Rinata numbly counted the steps in her head as she trudged up to her ridiculously spacious quarters. It was late. Of course, it was late, but there was a mountain of work to do, reports to read, decisions to take and orders to give. She wasn’t working any more than Josephine or Leliana. Considering that Cullen lived in the loft right above his desk, she wasn’t sure how much sleep her Commander was getting either.

Rinata chuckled to herself. Sister Nightingale, Commander Lionmane, The Iron Bull… Sounded more like a menagerie than a powerful Chantry organization.

Closing the door of her room behind her, Rinata’s chuckle died in her throat as she noticed the dark-haired man leaning against her balcony door.

The Inquisition menagerie could also boast its own special Problem Bear, of course.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she inquired, forcing a smile on her face. Not that she minded seeing _Sir_ Blackwall in her room, but it was unexpected, considering all that staying away business he’d been insisting on. 

“I…”

Rinata quirked her head at the Warden’s strange tone as he stepped into the room.

“I wanted to thank you for accompanying me to that ruin. I wanted to…” For once, his hands were more eloquent than his words. The Inquisitor nodded for him to continue, torn between her care and respect for him, and a slowly rising anger of a continuously rejected woman.

“I just had to see you.”

And then he bent his head and kissed her.

That stubborn, stoic, stupid man kissed her on the lips, as if he had every right, wiry beard bristling against her chin and stealing her breath away.

Rinata reeled as she stared up at him, all carefully laid layers of sensibility and reserve — of _staying away,_ for fuck’s sake! — torn and crushed in a matter of seconds. Her blood pounding in her ears, she barely heard what he said as he stepped away again, something about duty and wrongness, and not deserving.

What...? How... How _dared_ he come back to her now, when she had just recently and painstakingly figured out how to deal with everything on her own?! When she was a hair's breadth from finally leaving him alone, _like he had asked_? What had gotten into him?! 

Him not deserving? Well, she didn’t deserve pining after him either! She didn’t deserve him coming into her room and kissing her, and then rejecting her  _again_! No. No, she was not backing down this time!

It was strange and unexpected, yes, a dwarf Herald of Andraste and a human Grey Warden, almost twice her age, but _it wasn’t wrong_. Every time they were together, in battle or at camp, it felt like the rightest thing that had happened to her since this whole mess began.

“I decide what I deserve, not you,” she cut short his objections. “I’m not letting you go.”

Blackwall sighed as he stepped closer again, a conflicted, pained look in his eyes.

“We’ll regret this, my lady,” he predicted, and Rinata wanted to slap him for that defeated attitude. She wanted to get inside his head and finally understand _why_ , to make him forget all those stupid burdens and instead feel his real weight above her. And after, to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight — till the dawn comes, dispersing all doubts and showing him that the sky is not going to fall down just because they’re together.

“Do you regret that?” she challenged as she pulled him down and kissed him on the bristly cheek.

The Warden's answer was another kiss, overwhelming as a river breaking through a dam, deep, powerful and impatient as it swept away all her anger. Rinata gasped, and then kissed him back just as fiercely. She wanted to etch in her memory every single moment, every touch and breath, the feel of his tongue against hers - because there was no way how this could be real, how this... He backed her into the stone railing of the stairwell, large hands cupping her bottom and hoisting her up as if she weighed nothing. Rinata pulled him closer, hands buried in that dark, thick hair, reveling in its silky texture and the contrast of his wiry beard against her face, her neck, her throat.

“By the ancestors…” she cursed softly, and saw a burning, dark spark flash in the Warden’s eyes before he looked away again, his attention stolen by the dozens of tiny hooks on the front of her jacket. Now it was his time to curse, and Rinata giggled involuntarily, the incredulous, wondrous light swelling in her chest making her disoriented and silly.

“A Grey Warden on a quest detained by mere hooks, Sir Blackwall?” she teased, stepping daringly into the new territory. He growled good-naturedly, slipped his hands under her bum and picked her up again, her legs wrapping around his waist in an instant.

“Hardly an obstacle, my lady. And a Warden wouldn’t stand for little vixens laughing at him either.”

Still laughing, she bit him on the ear when he tried to throw her down on her bed, then leaned back sharply, causing him to misbalance, and pulled him down with her, landing clumsily among her numerous throw pillows.

“Little _rogue_ vixens,” she corrected him, panting.

The warrior hung his head, conceding defeat and trying to hide his grin in that fancy Orlesian moustache of his.

Suddenly serious, Rinata lightly ran her hands up his arms and shoulders, wondering if this _really_ was for real and what in the void had she done to finally break through to him. 

“My lady… You truly want this?” Blackwall asked her. “Want me?”

Rinata looked up at him and nodded resolutely. “Yes.”

She pulled on the ties of his gambeson, steadily unraveling them one by one and never breaking his gaze. “All of you,” she said. “Including those noble ideals and all that mess in your head. Your hands and mouth on me, your loyalty, bravery, and dirty jokes. Your cock buried deep inside me. I want all of you.”

Blackwall measured her with his gaze for a long moment, for the life of him failing to understand what he might have done to be blessed with this woman. He rather suspected all this to be some misunderstanding, an error in the Maker’s accounts.

But as he gently passed a hand over her cheek, her blue eyes glancing up at him with such openness and vulnerability, it hit him suddenly that this was not about him anymore, and hadn’t been for a long time.

For whatever reason, this stubborn dwarven lass had chosen him. Whatever she was going through because of the Inquisition, he was apparently the only one she was going to let this close, the only one who was in any position to try and keep her heart from icing over forever as she fought for a better world. His own thoughts on his worthiness truly didn’t matter.

She wasn't going to absolve him of his burdens. He would have to carry them on, because Rinata Cadash was so much more important than his own peace and redemption. 

He bent down and kissed her, his heart filled to bursting.

“You done moping around now?” she smiled up at him.

“That’s what you call good sense, my lady?”

Smiling, he dropped a kiss on her nose and lowered himself on his elbow, passing a teasing hand over the small silver hooks on her front and then popping one open with a look of absolute patience on his face. Rinata growled in frustration as she pulled him in for another kiss and started deftly opening her jacket from the bottom, meeting his hand barely above her chest.

“Stop messing with me,” she breathed. “I’ve waited long enough for you, Blackwall.”

He almost flinched at the name, but then remembered that it didn’t matter.

 _He_ didn’t matter, just the brave, beautiful woman lying in his arms. What mattered was her soft parted lips and smooth skin with those dwarven tattoos, the pretty scattering of freckles across her nose; the way she arched under his touch when he caressed her neck, her clavicles, her small, strong shoulders that could pull back a bow twice as heavy as Sera’s.

Gasps, then breathless moans as he got to her breasts, placing hot, open-mouthed kisses through the thin cotton of her chemise, laving her pebbled nipples through the cloth with his tongue and hearing her swear in that Marcher accent of hers.

She arched her back, hands thrown up above her head, when he tugged the chemise out of her waistband and pushed it up, chuckling when she bucked from the sudden feeling of his beard on her skin.

“Oh, ancestors…”

“Patience, my lady.”

“Oh, stuff your patience, Warden…”

He passed a hand over her chest, delighting in her gasps as he thumbed over her nipples, took one in his mouth and grazed his teeth against it experimentally. Rinata moaned loudly, her head thrown back against the pillows.

“Just fuck me already,” she muttered to herself, torn between drowning in Blackwall’s attentions and the overwhelming need to get him _naked_ , and _between her legs_ , and _inside_ her.

She lurched forward, pushing the untied gambeson from his shoulders and tugging at the hem of his shirt. For once, the stubborn man showed some cooperation, pulling it quickly over his head. He then stopped for a moment, an uncertain look in his eye as he sat on his heels, letting her see what she’d been so insistent on getting.

Rinata watched him like she could eat him for breakfast, a naked, greedy desire in her eyes as she took in his broad shoulders and fleshy muscles, dark chest hair trailing down his stomach and disappearing in his waistband, a thin layer of bulk betraying his nervous eating habits as of late. And then the bulge in his pants... The redhead swallowed thickly as she looked him in the eye.

“You know it’s not just the sex, right?” she said, her voice suddenly unsure.

Blackwall nodded. "Aye."

They left it at that, but there was less urgency in her kisses now, and more patience and tenderness. She sighed as he tugged down her pants and then removed his own, unable to ignore his hard-on anymore. He groaned feeling her hands on his chest, his sides, his shoulders, tracing wondering, light fingers over his old scars.

The Inquisitor seemed so small underneath him, so young and vulnerable. He found it hard to believe this was the same woman that had in cold blood beheaded the magister barely two weeks ago.

Rinata’s breath hitched in her throat as his hand moved lower, caressing the patch of ginger curls at the apex of her thighs, her legs parting of their own volition as his fingers slipped further, spreading her wetness over her labia. She whimpered, feeling his hard member pressing against her thigh. He kissed her deeply, pulled her closer to his chest and pushed a careful, thick finger inside her, the rough pad of his thumb working teasingly against her clit.

She sobbed into his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut and her breathing ragged, as he fucked her slowly with his hand, praying to the Maker he still knew what he was doing.

“Rin?”

“Ohhh! Just… Oh gods, Blackwall… I didn’t sign up for torture, did I?”

“Shh,” he soothed her, holding her tighter and kissing the tender skin under her jaw as she threw back her head again. Patiently, he added a second and third finger as her nails dug deeper into his back and a string of incoherent muttering fell from her lips.

She was ready, she was dripping wet and half-crazy with desire, what was he waiting for… She’d been with humans before, she knew what to expect.

"Please, just... Blackwall..." 

Finally, he moved above her, stroking himself firmly a couple of times, a knowing smirk on his lips as he did so. Rinata already had plans for that particular part of his anatomy for later. Oh, she’d be as merciless as he was now!

She smirked right back at him, as she pulled up her knees and arched her back, thrusting up her round breasts. Blackwall swallowed thickly, and then quickly leaned over her again, his strong arms on both sides of her head, her nose against his collar bone as he slowly pushed the thick head of his cock inside her.

Rinata gave out a low moan as she bit his shoulder and dug her nails in his sides, his torturous slow thrusts overwhelming all her senses.

The Warden groaned, his breathing ragged, as he stopped and rested his forehead against the pillow, trying to get used to the heat and tightness of her. Her sharp nails helped. He tried to take a calming breath, but Maker's balls, she felt incredible.

Rinata let out a plaintive moan and nudged him impatiently, before he started moving again, slow, hesitant, rock-hard strokes driving her steadily out of her mind.  She had no idea how long he was going to last, but from the way he took her, filling her so deeply and perfectly, she didn’t think Blackwall was going to be the problem here.

“Faster,” she begged, but he only shook his head, resting his forehead against the pillow again, his breathing no less labored than hers as he continued to slowly fuck her in that same deep, torturous rhythm, making her aware of every delicious inch of his length and girth, helpless against his delightful, immovable weight above her.

“Blackwall!”

“No. You’ll be sore in the morning.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

“Next time,” he conceded, his voice catching in his throat. “Next time you on top, and do what you will with an old man.”

Next time. Oh, ancestors. Rinata closed her eyes and let herself melt against him, moved and overwhelmed and so much in love. She felt him press his cheek against the top of her head, as he slightly sped up his tempo, the tip of his cock brushing against something deep and sensitive in her very core. One large, strong hand traveled down to cup her ass, and Rinata’s heart swelled as she was flooded by his warmth and scent, simple soap, and leather, and dampness from melted snowflakes in his hair. Suddenly, she was aware of the slightest draft of wind from the balcony, the brush of his soft chest hair against her sensitive nipples, the dance of his muscles working under his sweaty skin. His heart raced madly in his chest even as his thrusts started to grow erratic, his control slipping and tempo picking up until he was pounding into her hard and fast, burying himself to the hilt, the boundaries where he ended and she began crumbling into nothingness, into some meaningless construct that had never been true.

Rinata dug her nails in his arms as she came, head thrown back in a silent scream as her vocal chords and lungs refused to cooperate. Her whole body went stiff and then convulsed violently, awash with pleasure and light, and love, and completion. She moaned as he pounded inside her a few more times and then pulled out, coming in thick, creamy streaks over her chest and neck. He growled something incomprehensible and then fell to his side, arms weak and trembling as he gasped for breath.

Rinata rolled over, taking his limp hand and putting it between her thighs, reveling in the heavy, warm pressure over her mound as she shamelessly rode out the waves of her orgasm, a rapturous, victorious grin on her face. Still panting, Blackwall blinked at her sluggishly, letting her use his heavy limbs however she liked. He'd be damned if he'd ever imagined this could be the result of him coming up to talk to her. That he could make her look so radiant, even if it was only as long as he continued to keep his secrets. For her, he would... 

Slowly coming down back to her senses, Rinata sighed and curled up against her Warden, sated and at peace with the whole world. She felt like she was glowing, warm inside and out. If she were a firefly, she would now do just that, she mused, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. She would glow happily. 

She lazily wondered if either of them were in any condition to bring the jug of water and some cloth from her washing table across the room. Then she figured she wasn't ready to let Blackwall anywhere out of her reach yet, wrapped her arm around his waist and snuggled into his side. 

Glancing down at her, Blackwall raised his hand and wiped a stray drop of come from her chin. He tried to mumble something apologetic, but managed only a crooked grin. Giving up, he instead pulled her closer and drew a blanket over them.

Rinata smiled up at him drowsily. “Next time, dearest, I come on your face,” she muttered.

"Mhm. Fair's fair..." he grumbled. "You might later want a salve, though... For the beard burn..."

“I’ll remember.”

“Will look forward to it, my lady...”

"Mmm..."

 

 *

“Blackwall?”

“Hm?”

“Close that balcony door, please.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A thank you goes to iscatterthemintimeandspace for pointing out skips in logic, and to [blackwallsbeard](http://blackwallsbeard.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for inventing weekly deadlines ^^
> 
> Also, big hugs to everyone who reads this series! :))


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